Lawyers acting for Christa Pike have detailed the horrendous injuries she received from her failed execution last Wednesday after the prisoner woke up and started talking. Pike’s lawyers announced late on Tuesday the murderer remains in intensive care, but is now conscious and talking. She was injected with two doses of pentobarbital in a failed execution last Wednesday. But when the second dose did not end Pike’s life, and she was heard snoring, she was rushed to hospital with horrific injuries.
Lawyers describe 'medically unprecedented' recovery
“Against all odds, Christa Pike is conscious, speaking, and continues to receive critical medical care. Despite the severe damage she endured to her arms, she is still handcuffed and shackled to the bed. Her recovery is medically unprecedented. Her prognosis remains unclear but, at a minimum, we expect a long recovery,” attorneys for Pike said in a statement.
Her attorneys added they are grateful for the first responders and the medical team at the hospital “who treated Christa like a human and have provided exceptional care to her.”
Burns and blistering from lethal injection
A spokeswoman for the Tennessee Department of Correction said she could provide no information other than that Pike remained hospitalized Tuesday. It’s now been revealed the lethal injection has caused horrific burns and blistering on Pike’s arms. Dr. Joel Zivot, a professor of anesthesiology and surgery in Atlanta who consulted as an expert for Pike’s legal team, said the development “bodes well for a good recovery.”
But, he added, it could be weeks or months before anyone knows exactly what her recovery might look like, and whether her competency could be restored to a level that might enable the state to try again to execute her. “She’s still in the ICU,” he said. “She has recovered to a certain degree that she’s able to be off a ventilator and able to speak, but in no way would I announce her free of further serious risk. There’s still a lot of bad things that can happen here, even when everyone is doing their job well.”
Court hearing and commutation request
Pike’s attorneys are set to go to court Wednesday as they seek to learn more about what happened in the failed lethal injection. The attorneys are seeking a court order requiring the Tennessee Department of Correction to preserve evidence, including drug lot numbers, records and other information from the Sept. 30 attempted execution. Chancery Court Judge I’Ashea Myles scheduled a Wednesday morning status conference in the case.
Pike’s attorneys said in their Tuesday statement that they continue to ask Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee to commute Pike’s sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole. “Christa is a survivor and will take recovery one day at a time,” her attorneys said. Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder and torture of classmate Colleen Slemmer with her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp.
